


Bargains

by Hyacinthus



Category: Die (Image Comics)
Genre: Drabble Sequence, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-14
Updated: 2019-07-14
Packaged: 2020-06-28 03:58:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 400
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19804258
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hyacinthus/pseuds/Hyacinthus
Summary: Isabelle and the deals she makes with her gods.





	Bargains

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Scytale](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Scytale/gifts).



Bear respects power. He is a constant battle, and Isabelle knows all the steps in the push-and-pull between them, the violence he wants for his offering. Bear is not one for tricky words and clever thoughts; she finds it easy to lose herself in him, the size of his great mouth and paws as their enemies fall effortlessly beneath them. Her first summon back in the land of Die, and she remembers how intoxicating it is to have gods at your beck and call. 

Bear is for battle. Bear is easy. She never fears to summon him, his laser-focused mind. 

-

The Mourner she loves and hates in equal measure. There is nothing so satisfying as healing, but The Mourner cares only for small tragedies, a personal stench of despair. Isabelle reads for the people of Glass Town at her behest, and she knows the Mourner collected her fear, her anger and distress to feed on. Yet she won’t lift a finger to help the citizenry when the dome breaks. Are their emotions not enough? Or does nothing satisfy the Mourner so much as the feelings of a Godbinder? Mourner loves her in the same way a cat loves a mouse. 

-

Mistress Woe, like The Mourner, cares only for her. She delights at having Isabelle owe her favors, carries them in her back pocket like a deck of cards. She plays only when she has trump and she knows she can win the hand. Yet Isabelle cannot refuse her; knowledge of the future is too precious to pass on, even as Mistress Woe’s asks grow more costly. She folds, a house of cards every time, brought down by a breath. 

When she thinks of the future, Isabelle imagines herself only as one of the skulls Mistress Woe wears as bracelet charms. 

-

Skywatcher she does not respect. Gods are only what they are made to be, and he is a simple god. She manipulates him with barely a thought, words tumbling from her mouth, a d12 with a fixed outcome. Her teaching has come in handy, her mind says, pulling from legions of operators in the literature she’s read. Still he is a peasant god for peasant people, and it was he who she called to save the people of Glass Town. He is not a smart god, but a useful god, and though she does not respect him she is grateful.


End file.
